


Morpheus

by ClementineStarling



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Dark, Death, Der Sandmann, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Consent, Eye Trauma, F/M, Sorry Not Sorry, nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 05:12:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10455855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineStarling/pseuds/ClementineStarling
Summary: Juliana is dreaming.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on tumblr wanted dark!John.  
> 'Now, what could be darker than actual canon?' I thought -- and then my mind tried to be helpful and came up with this.

Juliana dreams.

She dreams the same dream every night.

Every night she runs and runs, the sound of her footsteps hollow, the concrete hard, so hard under the soles of her flats it makes her feet hurt. She keeps running though, safety isn't that far. If she was just a little bit faster, she could reach it in time. But she doesn't make progress as fast as she should. 

She never outruns the guns. 

She hears them fire, a dull explosion behind her, almost muffled, and her skin freezes in anticipation. She still tries to run but she is paralysed before the bullet has even reached her. She is already numb when it tears through her back, shattering her spine, and then she is falling forwards– 

That's when she usually wakes. 

It's terrible but she still prefers this dream to her other nightmares. 

To the one where she is holding Trudy in her arms, stiff as a doll, her skin like wax. The rot, sticky and sweet, is all around her, creeping into her every pore, and the ground beneath her is a quagmire of corpses, threatening to devour her too.

Or to the one of Frank where he is naked in a room of concrete, wide-eyed with fear, and she tries to comfort him, to hug him, but as soon as she's touched him he begins to crumble, his body is falling apart into flakes and flakes of ash, until there is nothing left but a pile of dust.

And there are more, nightmares of a different nature, nightmares more twisted and disturbing, nightmares that make her wonder which side she is really on. 

Sometimes Juliana is back in Canon City, in her room in the Honey Bee Motel, the well-worn sheets soft against her drowsy limbs, the pillow still cool on the other side. She stretches, turns around, curls up again. Her bed is safe as sunlight, cosy and warm, the morning saturated with the smell of fresh coffee. 

“Juliana.” The voice is low, gentle. Gentle as the lips that press against the top of her head. 

Joe's fingers brush against her temple, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. She is keeping her eyes closed, imagining his smile, easy, generous, the tempting curve of his lips, the forest honey hair, too dark to be blond, to fair to be brunet. Without having touched it she knows how it feels, silky and soft, a sensation you could lose yourself in, combing your fingers through it, again and again, like a form of meditation.

She shifts without really intending to, turning her face towards Joe's hand so he can run his fingers over her cheekbones, along the line of her jaw, and he does, retracing her features as though memorising them. It is almost like worship, and Juliana feels herself melting into his touch, her lips parting in anticipation of a kiss.

He leans down to her, “Juliana,” he says again, it sounds like a prayer, murmured against her lips.

The tension is palpable, like air is charged, crackling, before a thunderstorm. Juliana doesn't open her eyes but her hands seek his shoulders, his neck, his nape, the softness of his hair, of his skin, pulls him closer and he is yielding. It's not him kissing her. She is kissing him. He lets himself be kissed. 

He tastes like summer and lemonade, sparkles and oranges, and she wants to devour him, have her fill of that sweetness and innocence and sunrise-warmth, have it inside her and under her skin, and she is pushing back against him, pushing him on his back, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt.

That's when she's opening her eyes– 

– and the world isn't how she imagined it. There's no warm cereal ad-lighting, no whiskey-golden sunbeams. Everything is coarse and gritty. Monochrome. Joe's face is ashen, drab as his field grey uniform. A black patch on his collar betrays his rank, and what a good little soldier he is, what a diligent murderer for Führer and Fatherland. His eyes gleam like buttons, polished and beady, the eyes of a fanatic. It makes her sick to kiss him, to have him touch her. But she knows what to do. She leans over him and putting her fingers around his throat she squeezes. 

He's hard against her leg even when his hands find her chest, lie flat against it as if trying to push her off. (He doesn't though; perhaps he knows he deserves to die.) His fingers are sticky with blood. He doesn't struggle. She still wants to have him inside her, and the logic of dreams just makes it so and grants her wish. He is shuddering while she rides him, gasping for breath, helpless, hopeless, thrusting up into her, filling her so good, while his face turns even paler, his lips a bluish-grey, his eyes bulging. He is writhing beneath her but his erection isn't flagging. Aren't hanged men said to have erections sometimes?

She almost throws up when she wakes, nausea is roiling in her stomach, but her panties are damp and her clit is throbbing. The feeling of Joe's cock stretching her open is still fresh, almost real, and her cunt clenches, empty. Juliana presses the back of her hand to her mouth, trying not to retch.

The room is stuffy, the air stale with near-perfect silence. There is the faint sound of the air conditioning, the low buzz of far away traffic. Even the rush of blood in her ears is louder than these noises. The quiet is stifling. She feels like she's choking. 

She kicks off the blanket and gets out of bed. Splashing some cold water on her face will quickly dispel the after-effects of that vile dream. Still dizzy she drags herself to the bathroom.

It doesn't work half as well as she hoped so she pours herself a generous helping of fruit brandy on the way back to bed. Helen gave it to her as a house warming present. " _Marillenbrand_ , imported from the fatherland," she said. It's decent enough, Juliana thinks after tasting it. Probably expensive. The bottle is very pretty at least. The main point is that it will fulfil its purpose though.

She takes a large gulp. The liquor burns down her throat and pools as a soothing warmth in her belly. A couple of sips later she actually feels better, good enough to dare go back to sleep and face the dreadful fabrications of her unconscious.

As she crawls back under the cover she notices the book on the night stand. _Nachtstücke_ , the title reads, by E.T.A Hoffmann, Nocturnes. Thomas has lent it to her so she can brush up on her German. She only started the first story before she fell asleep. She opens the book, flips through the pages to the paragraph where she stopped reading. _Der Sandmann_. No wonder she's had nightmares after this tale of madness and death. 

Juliana leans back against the pillows and thinks of poor Nathanael and his obsession for the beautiful doll Olimpia, his infatuation with her perfect face and glass eyes; she also thinks of the Joe of her dream, the puppet feel of him. _Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream_ , the Chordettes sing in her head. _Make him the cutest that I've ever seen, give him two lips like roses and clover..._

Joe is indeed cute and his lips are decidedly lovely but Juliana can't help thinking about the sandman himself. She's never given him much consideration, he seemed benevolent enough in that song, but now she is picturing the fairy tale creature mentioned in the book. A demon who throws sand by the handful into the eyes of naughty children until they pop from their skulls, so he can collect them and feed them to his own offspring back home in the half-moon; she imagines the little monsters pecking greedily at the children's eye balls with their crooked owl beaks.

It's a horrible thought and yet it stirs something inside her, causing a near-pleasant shiver, a reaction that perhaps would make her feel disgusted with herself if she weren't so tired. She has difficulties keeping her eyes open, just as though someone had indeed sprinkled sand into them. 

Juliana takes the last sip of her drink and puts the glass on the night stand. Her lids fall shut of their own accord a few moments later. As she is drifting off to sleep she sees the sandman in the darkness of her mind. He's a tall man with sharp, angular features, a gaunt face that's so very familiar. 

She must have nodded off because a knock at the door jolts her awake. An urgent knock, firm, imperious, not one you can allow yourself to ignore. 

The door doesn't look anyway, Juliana remembers as she gets out of bed to answer it. The fact makes the knock almost appear like a courtesy. Whoever wanted to see her at this hour surely would not let themselves be turned away.

It's him.

Juliana's heart almost stops. For a moment it looks as if he's come shrouded in the night itself but then she realises that he's just wearing a long black leather coat over his usual uniform. It's only Obergruppenführer Smith, not the master of dreams. And he's alone. That probably means he hasn't come to arrest her. She can't suppress a sigh of relief. 

“Ms Mills,” he says in this husky voice that never fails to make her bones melt and her knees weak, and then, after entering her little apartment: “Juliana.”

The way he pronounces her name is nothing like Joe says it. Joe adores her. He worships the ground under her feet. John however – Juliana can't think of any phrase to express it more accurately than that he _owns_ her. He could kill her if he wanted. He _can_ in fact kill her whenever he pleases. No one will stop him, no one would even charge him for it. He can gauge her eyes out and feed it to the crows if he likes. There is nothing she could do about it and they both know it. So whatever he wants, whatever he's come to ask of her, she's got no choice but to give it to him. She attempted to refuse him before, and he'd seen right through her.

“You're very good at this little role you play,” he said, “the bird with the broken wing.”

It's no use, trying to deceive him, his eyes are sharp as knives, she can feel them cutting through the thin fabric of her night gown, and deeper still. She wrapped herself in secrets and pretence, clothed herself in an armour of lies, but he sees and he knows everything. He must be able to read her mind, her thoughts and dreams and also her desires.

“Is everything all right?” she asks, again, as if there's a script she has to follow. “John?” It sounds like the plea it is.

He takes a step closer. He's so close now she can smell the leather of his coat and a hint of his cologne and it makes her even more aware of the fact she's almost naked. She hugs herself to shield herself against his gaze but it does little to calm her.

“You lied to me, Juliana,” he purrs and she can feel the tears well up in her eyes. 

But it's not just that, there's this awful tightness between her legs and her nipples harden in anticipation. It's the cold, it must be the cold, she tells herself as they push against the flimsiness of her night gown. There's no way this will escape him. She hopes for the ground to open up and swallow her whole but of course nothing of the sort happens. 

“I didn't lie to you, please, you have to believe me, I would not, I would never...” she stammers, her eyes downcast, avoiding his gaze.

He laughs, it's a dry, humourless sound. “See, you're doing it again.”

He takes another step forward, she takes a step back, it's like a dance, or it would be if she had room to manoeuvre. There's a table behind her, her table. It's edge hard, unyielding against the back of her thighs and the tips of her fingers. She tries to slip away, escape to the side, but he won't let her. Another step and he has trapped her against the treacherous piece of furniture.

“John,” she pleads again, instinct has her put her hands against his coat in an attempt to protect herself. The dead animal skin is cool and slick under her palms. She was mistaken, she thinks, he's wearing death, not shreds of night. But isn't death merely a brother of sleep? And are they not all night's children? 

She must be going mad like poor Nathanael.

“Oh Juliana,” he says, his voice too close to her skin, “you should have told me.” 

“Told you what?” She sounds shrill, panicked. He could be referring to anything. Fear is twisting and turning inside her, but there is something else, something worse than fear. An undercurrent, dark and primal and base. 

He grabs a handful of her hair and tilts her head backwards. It hurts. She gasps as the pain runs from her scalp down her spine, transforms into an ache, into a keen tug in her lower body. She can feel herself getting wet. 

“Enjoying yourself, Juliana?” he asks, and she can't tell if he's amused or angry. His face is a landscape of darkness, his eyes hidden in shadow. 

He reaches out with his free hand to cup one of her breasts, and this time it's not pain that makes her gasp but surprise. Her nipple is pushing through the thin nightdress against his waiting palm, curious, pert. Inviting. He smiles, she can see the curl of his lips, when he takes the nipple between thumb and forefinger. She moans when he is increasing the pressure, pinching it, not too gently. The touch is radiating heat like a brand.

“You want this,” he whispers. It's not a question but she nods nonetheless. 

He is looming over her, a night-mare creature come to fulfil her darkest desires, and she holds her breath as he leans closer still, her hands clutching at the lapels of his coat.

He tastes like smoke when he kisses her, not like cigarettes but like fire, and just like fire it burns. Every lick of his tongue, every move of his mouth against hers is charring, she feels herself blacken, chafed raw. The whole of his body is pressing against her, every buckle of his uniform, every badge and medal and button, digging into her skin. 

He puts his hands around her waist, lifts her up as if she weighed nothing at all, pushes her onto the table. Her legs fall open around him and his hands glide downwards, over her thighs. 

Juliana's fingers are clumsy as she fumbles with the fastenings of his uniform trousers. He's right, she wants this so much, she is aching with a physical need for him, bone-deep and all consuming. Her own emptiness is eating at her, devouring her, inside out. So why not allow the monster to take her first?

He says her name again when she wraps her fingers around his cock and encouraged she tightens her grip. It twitches in response, hot and heavy with blood, and John groans, a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. It seems the enemy is only human after all, and men are always so vulnerable like this. She tightens her fingers a bit more, and his hand comes flying to her wrist, closing like a vice around it.

“Careful, little girl,” he growls but she only laughs at him. Giggles like that little girl she hasn't been for a long, long time. What could he do to her that has not already been done? She used to be broken, now she's gone mad like Hoffmann's protagonist, and death gets everyone in the end, right?

John pulls her hand away from his cock, placing it on the table top. 

“Keep it there,” he says. His lips are so close to the sensitive skin of her neck, she can feel the heat of his breath. She shivers.

When his hands make their way down her body, it's nothing less than a conquest. They're shoving the nightdress out of the way, impatiently, then they slip under the seam of her panties and rip them apart in one sure, practised motion. The cotton tears but she couldn't care less about this waste of perfectly good underwear, she's too excited about his thumb, brushing experimentally over her pussy. She is already embarrassingly wet. 

He hums his approval at the discovery. “That's my girl,” he murmurs as he rubs her own slickness over her clit, making her shudder. It feels good but not good enough, she is so very empty.

“Please,” she whispers.

He takes his thumb away, raises it to his lips and puts it into his mouth, tasting her. She can see the flash of his tongue as it swipes away the traces of her arousal and she swallows hard.

“Please what, Juliana?” he says. 

He will make her beg for her own destruction. But Juliana is not afraid. She wraps her legs around him to pull him closer, looking him straight in the eye, when she says it: “Fuck me.” It's more demand than request, and he obliges.

His fist twists itself in her hair again, holding her in place, while he is sheathing himself in her flesh, sliding into her like a knife. He is a weapon, she thinks, he can't help it, that's what they made him, sharp as a blade, hard as steel, a nightmare in human form. Before her inner eye she sees him haunting a white, snowy landscape; a shadow in a wasteland. The wind is harsh around him, billowing his coat, and the snowflakes dance and only then does she notice the figures emerging from the fog, human shapes but contorted, too slim, too much like spectres.

Juliana bites her lip, hard, and concentrates on how right he feels inside her, thick and large and firm, just as she deserves. (She's a traitor after all, isn't she? Who commits treason without a reward?) A thin sheen of sweat is springing up on her skin as he keeps moving against her, pushing into her, not too fast, not too slow, just at the right pace to make the pleasure build. Of course he's good at this, how could he not be? (Yes, how? It feels as if she's forgotten something. Something important.)

Her thighs are trembling. There is a spreading numbness at the base of her spine, a nameless pleasure wound tighter than she can bear. John puts his thumb back to work between her legs, rubbing it against her clit, and she is clenching around him, her hands clawing at his coat, her eye lids flutter shut. For a moment it feels like flying. She can sense John withdrawing his hand, just before her orgasm catches up with her.

“ _Mizaru_ ,” he says as he puts his thumbs over her closed eyes and starts pushing them into her skull.

“ _Kikazaru_ ,” he says and her screams of pain go silent in her suddenly deaf ears.

“ _Iwazaru_ ,” he says before he puts his mouth over hers, sucking at her tongue, his teeth sharp as razor blades.

Juliana wakes before she feels him biting down. 

She's alone in her dormitory room. She can make out the shapes of the furniture in the dark, the low sound of the air conditioning. Her eyes and ears are fine. So is her tongue. It lies dry and alien as wood in her mouth, but at least it is still there. It was only a dream, she tells herself. Only a bad dream.

She takes a deep breath, smooths back her hair. It is damp. She's drenched in sweat, her face wet with tears, and there is a stickiness between her legs that should not be there. It takes a moment before she realises her cunt is still pulsing with the aftershocks of climax. A wave of nausea is welling up inside her. This time she does throw up.

~


End file.
